Let's Face the Music and Die

Witty, hip, pretty, and gay, Lauren Laurano isn't your typical private detective. She shares an apartment with Kip, her longtime lover, in New York's Greenwich Village, where they are surrounded by a close-knit group of friends. But Lauren and Kip's relationship has hit a rough patch, and when Kip goes out of town for a month-long conference, Lauren's life gets complicated by a new case, a new love interest, and a menace from her past. Lauren's friend Elissa is in trouble. Her elderly aunt has been found brutally stabbed to death, and much to Elissa's dismay, the police suspect she's the killer. Elissa's situation looks dire: she's without an alibi and in line to inherit a large sum of money. Undaunted, Lauren takes the case, using her unique combination of street-savvy detecting and electronic know-how to find the real killer. Tapping into the Internet for clues, Lauren gets more than she bargained for. First on-line, then in person, she meets Alex, a young woman to whom she is powerfully attracted. As the investigation grows more complex, Lauren becomes more and more distracted by thoughts of Alex and guilt about Kip. And just as Lauren thinks she has her hands full, one of her dearest friends is hospitalized and Lauren begins receiving death threats herself.